Liu is a Chinese citizen and was married in Leesburg, Va. to the boy’s
father in 2007 and lived in various locations in Virginia. The boy, who has
dual United States and Chinese citizenship, was born in 2010 and the pair
divorced in 2013. The pair had joint legal custody of the child, and the
custody order said that neither party could travel with the child outside
the United States without written and notarized consent of the other party.
According to an affidavit by an FBI agent, Liu told the boy’s father in an
e-mail on Thursday morning that her grandmother was dying, so she and the
boy were flying back to China. The father told her the child could not go
because she would not be able to send him to school, and she e-mailed back
saying that she already booked the plane ticket and they were leaving
immediately, the court documents say.
Authorities said that Liu told the father that she was taking the trip
because she had been notified about her grandmother’s declining health on
Wednesday, but travel documents show that she made flight reservations for
one-way airline tickets on Aug. 27.